[tnlibrarian]

I took the first pill last night. My doc is having me start with 25 mg. and increase it every week until I hit 100 mg. She said if that's not enough to call her and make an appointment.

About an hour after I took it the drowsiness hit me. Then I had some weird side effects. I started getting double vision, my head started just feeling weird and my eyes actually felt like they were throbbing. I'm going take another one tonight but I was wondering if those are typical side effects or if I need to call my doc on Monday.

[Resident Bipolar]

I often get that on my higher dose...as one of the most common side effects of Seroquel is drowsiness. Headaches and dizziness often occur in 18%-22% of people, and I know that my high dose causes a little bit of a fast heart beat.

What you're experiencing may just be associated with the drowsiness. Can you take your own pulse? If you take your pulse for 15 seconds and times it by four (to get the beats per minute) and then let us know that would be highly useful.

Try seeing what happens when you take the 25mg again tonight. If you get the same side effects I really do advise that you speak to a healthcare professional before taking another dosage.

What I've found is that taking your medication and then getting straight into bed is the best thing to do. Otherwise the drowsiness hits before. However I'm slightly concerned with the double vision and throbbing behind your eyes. This could be a sign of tachycardia or something else equally serious but at the same time it could just be an initial unwanted side effect.

Let us know as soon as you can your pulse and also how the meds affect you tonight. If it's the same all we can really do is give you advice and advise you to call your doctor. But yeah...if you get the same side effects tonight do not take another dose until after you've spoken to a healthcare professional.

RB ♥

[Hope-Full]

I had similar side effects when I started seroquel, and actually found that the dose prescribed was too high for me to start with, even though it's a typical starting dose. I split the pill in half, and took that dose for about a week, and slowly increased about every five days. I tend to have to do that with all meds because my body is really sensitive to them.

The seroquel has been a huge help for me, I take it before bed and hit helps with sleep in addition to everything else. I take it about an hour before I head to bed.

Hope this helps.

[FuriousGeorge]

Keep in mind that only your health care professional (ie Doctor), is qualified to diagnose and make med adjustments.

[tnlibrarian]

I did much, much better on it last night. Aside from a headache and not sleeping well due to no more Ativan I had no problems. I happened to think that I took a Dramamine about an hour before I took the Seroquel. We're thinking it was possibly a bad interaction between the two. As of right now I'm going to keep taking it and see how things go. I'll call my psych doc if it happens again.

[FuriousGeorge]

Seroquel gets a bum rap sometimes. Yes, there are some annoying side affects and it can be terrible to withdrawal ( my doc had me taper off for 5 months before quitting and there was very few issues, with zero problems being able to sleep without it), but it definitely helped me out in some really bad times. I was on it for 5 years and have no regrets at all.